"It’s taking something everyone knows on the web (your email address) and making it immensely more valuable as a way to identify yourself and information about you. Exactly what kind of information? Here are some of the ideas from the WebFinger Google Code page: * public profile data * pointer to identity provider (e.g. OpenID server) * a public key * other services used by that email address (e.g. Flickr, Picasa, Smugmug, Twitter, Facebook, and usernames for each) * a URL to an avatar * profile data (nickname, full name, etc) * whether the email address is also a JID, or explicitly declare that it’s NOT an email, and ONLY a JID, or any combination to disambiguate all the addresses that look like something@somewhere.com * or even a public declaration that the email address doesn’t have public metadata, but has a pointer to an endpoint that, provided authentication, will tell you some protected metadata, depending on who you authenticate as."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet

I don't want my contact information to be my identifier. I shouldn't have to give a website my email address, just like I shouldn't have to give a store my phone number.
- Daniel Sims

Daniel, I think it just takes the form of an email address, but does not in fact have to be one (or could be a "throw away" account).
- Paul Buchheit

It would be cool if we could get our act together (as an industry) and make this stuff happen. I'd also like to see ENUM deployed to the point that my phone number can be linked to my identity. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...)
- Joe Beda

This is a bad idea in so many ways I can't even begin to list them.
- April Russo

If a site wants my email address, it's probably in order to spam me. It's usually a bad sign. If legit sites ask for my email more, it will make it harder to identify the spammers.
- Tim Tyler

Do gmail users seriously still have problems with spam? I don't.
- Robin Barooah

Personally this sounds great - as long as it really doesn't force you to use your actual gmail address.
- Robin Barooah

Sounds like the .plan which is (again) accessed via an id in email format and returns different information/metadata about a person depending on who's accessing it. Email id is used to do a DNS lookup in order to discover URL for the XRD file (accessed with a HTTP GET) containing the metadata about the person being, er, WebFinger-ed.
- Nenad Nikolic

it is like user authenticating, having two three ids won't hurt ;) well i don't want to be identified, they are going same as gravatar
- testbeta

It's so curious to me that people have concerns that WebFinger would lead to more spam, and yet don't like the "format" of URLs for IDs. Personally, as far as OpenID is concerned, I don't care what the identifier looks like as long as people can remember it — typically email seems easier to recall than URLs (for most people in today's world).
- Chris Messina

Some users who have an email account with Google, myself included, have oodles of incoming mail both standard and secure so it fits the bill to increase security for both vendors and marketers.
- frank burns

I have no problem with the idea, but it seems to me that it won't help the current state of affairs much. The kind of information I'd be interested in sharing via Webfinger (my OpenID, a URL to a FOAF file, etc.) will have no better adoption, so the Webfinger configuration doesn't buy me much. I'll hold out hopes that after a couple tight integrations between Webfinger and OpenID providers (say if Google, Microsoft and/or Yahoo provided and consumed both) things will improve ... here's to hoping :(
- J. McConnell

Years ago I experimented with FOAF. I didn't fully understand nor appreciate what I was doing. To serve as a warning, if you take this example, ensure that it is blocked. #Example: I sent a file to Adobe which in turn, was sent to another email account I had at the time. I verified it's sender (ME) and sent it back in the direction of travel. A signed FOAF (API KEY) was then returned...
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- frank burns

huh...I tried both and neither gave a 'did you mean....' Why the difference?
- George Gray

George, this was from earlier. I think it's probably been fixed by now.
- Thomas Hawk

I can't reproduce the results either. Even more proof that Google's damage control department works real f-a-s-t
- BLOGBloke

I can reproduce these results (as it's fake). 1 - Do a google search for 'balck people stole my car' 2 - when the results come back, in the search box type 'white people stole my car'. 3 - Screenshot and fool everyone.
- Will Higgins™

Thomas...ah...I was catching up on my feed and didn't notice when the message posted. Still, I have noticed different results when using Google from: the browser search bar, going right to google.com and when logged into google via iGoogle. Weird.
- George Gray

This reminds me of how commercials for home alarm systems always feature white criminals.
- Akiva

Dude, you win 1000 times over for use of the word 'colored'. I'm about as far from a racist as you can get but that shit cracks me up every time.
- Akiva

i think that google isnt racist, but people that use it yes..infact google shows firstly the most popular results.....this is my opinion..and please apologize me formy english..i'm italian!w La pizza!
- Lyssa

FriendFeed team, I know we're not going to get any new features (though the service could certainly do with some bug and performance fixes) but could the community please be allowed to get to the backend part of the system to improve the new-user process?

What ideas do you have for the new user experience? We've got a suggested user list based off of who you are already subscribed to, a one click sign up flow (automatically subscribing you to your friends and already knowing your email, name, username, and picture), and some promos that appear inside of the feed (reminding you about themes, asking for an email address if we don't have one, asking you to import your friends from Google / Facebook / Twitter, etc.)
- Benjamin Golub

And don't forget you can "recommend friends" by visiting a users profile page. If the user only has a few friends or is new they will have a link where you can send them a nudge asking them to subscribe to some people you think they might enjoy.
- Benjamin Golub

So: the system is already perfect - so no, nobody can make changes?
- Tim Tyler

We had this conversation a while back. When search is working again I'll have a look for the threads. Either way I'll be back on FF later to post about this but it seems in general new users seem to not know what to do and where to go once they have registered and authorised they email address.
- Kol Tregaskes

Best of Day/Week for the public feed would be great and would help users find new people to follow.
- Kol Tregaskes

OK, I signed up with an email address on the same domain as my main FF account (koltregaskes) and was automatically subbed to, erm, myself. :-) - so I guess it worked that out from the domain name that we might know each other? But then it took me to the home feed and at no point did I get a tutorial or guide of what to do next. I know there is one on the home page but this video should be shown after signing up and with additional explanation for groups, saved searches + friends lists.
- Kol Tregaskes

I suggested (via email) to Ana that there could be a small interactive tutorial here, showing the user how to post but any kind of detail on the other main FF features would be great.
- Kol Tregaskes

I also had FOAF on from the start and so saw posts from all the users my main account was subscribed to as well as koltregaskes (me). I'm happy either way that this is on from the start but it does need some explanation to the new user as it might be a little confusing. They might think 'who the hell are these guys? I only subscribed to one person'.
- Kol Tregaskes

In my home feed I not only saw my main account's feed and FOAF posts but I also saw your "promotional" post which highlighted that the user could import friends from other services. This is good but perhaps a few more of these "promotional" posts could also highlight how to use groups, friends lists, search and saved searches?
- Kol Tregaskes

I'd like better Facebook Connect integration - give me the source and you'd see it in the next month.
- Jesse Stay

I'd then like to see the user being asked for a few of their favourite interests (via keywords maybe) and given a few group recommendations based on these so to get them started. To me I always think groups are the better place to start, instead of specific users. Users could be posting any range of topics. With groups they are more narrow in their subject matter and would probably interest new users more.
- Kol Tregaskes

I'm not in favour of the generic suggestioned user list. Those 12 listed might be the most popular but are certainly not regular users of the service. All the new user would be getting would be the suggested user's Twitter streams, etc. and no or very little engagement.
- Kol Tregaskes

OK, so the question is what user's to recommend? And like I say above I personally prefer recommended groups (based on the entered interests from the user) would be a better place to start.
- Kol Tregaskes

I would also like the FF-Feedback group and/or the Beginners/Welcome group(s) highlighted upon sign up too. If they are shown or perhaps even automatically subscribed to the Welcome or Beginners groups, for example, one would hope that that's where the new user would start and introduce themselves.
- Kol Tregaskes

Then us old-timers would be able to greet them, give advice and help them get started. At the moment, if the new user posted to their home feed no one is going to see it. With an established group there would be users already reading it and would engagement with the user early on. Currently, it appears, new users are left out in the cold.
- Kol Tregaskes

I also tried registering with a domain I've not registered before and so was not subscribed to anyone automatically. If this happens to a new user and they then selected to not subscribe to any of the suggested users, they are then presented with an empty home feed. So going back to my suggestion of recommeding groups based on keywords of the new user's interests. It would potentially give them something to read initially, instead of a virtually empty screen.
- Kol Tregaskes

Oh and is it just me or is the YouTube Welcome video really quiet?
- Kol Tregaskes

What are people's thoughts, is the new-user system OK or could it be improved (and how)? And Paul, is there a possibility the system would be updated if seen to be required?
- Kol Tregaskes

Is there no email verification any more? Or are mine just stuck in my spam box somewhere? :-)
- Kol Tregaskes

The email verification should still be working, but email has been a little quirky lately, which I need to investigate this week. In terms of creating a better new user tutorial, perhaps you can create something good in wiki form that the whole community can contribute to. When it's ready, I'll add it to the new user experience.
- Paul Buchheit

why not just keep fleshing out the friendfeed entry on wikipedia? what's there is a good cursory overview, but there could be so much more (like the stuff you're talking about Kol)
- Chris Heath

Chris, the Wikipedia entry is an encyclopaedia entry. If we are to use a wiki then it would be best served elsewhere. Personally I'm happy for everyone to discuss their thoughts on the new-user process here.
- Kol Tregaskes

I'm happy to discuss here too, but this kind of discussion is basically the kind of discussion that takes place in a wikipedia 'talk' page for the entry (not saying that we should take this discussion there, i'm just saying that it's already started for us there and it's just waiting to be fleshed out) -- also, i don't see why the encyclopedia entry for friendfeed can't have a section...
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- Chris Heath

I wonder if he has any evidence of that, or whether he's just putting forward a theory that he plans to test.
- Robin Barooah

A fair bit of it seems like stating the reasonably obvious. He says "tears send a message of distress to potential allies in the vicinity" - and maybe that gets underplayed. Evolutionary psychology is not best-known for its solid experimental foundation, though. It is often a case of: who can think of the most convincing-sounding just-so story.
- Tim Tyler

"A series of emails that surfaced in an old Microsoft antitrust case have come to light, the most interesting of which show Bill Gates admitting his company was "flat footed" in the wake of the 2003 iTunes launch."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet

"What I want to say is that Kurzweil and the singularitarians are indulging in some sort of para-science, which differs from real science in matters of methodology and rigor. They tend to overlook rigorous scientific practices such as focusing on natural laws, giving precise definitions, verifying the data meticulously, and estimating the uncertainties. Below I list a number of scientific wrongdoings in Kurzeil’s book. I try to rectify some of them in order to properly present my critique of the Singularity concept."
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet

"Kurzweil is possessed by the exponential function. He criticizes people who make forecasts by simply extrapolating straight lines on linear trends. But he does the very same thing on logarithmic paper."
- Doug Beeferman

I read part of the book, but gave up when I decided his thesis was "Everything can be fit to an exponential curve, but sometimes, the exponential curve needs to be on log paper (aka "double exponential")" and wasn't going to change if I kept reading. And talking about a "knee" (aka inflection point) of an exponential curve is absurdly stupid.
- Alex Power

"The acceleration of paradigm shift (the rate at which we change fundamental technical approaches) as well as the exponential growth of the capacity of information technology are both beginning to reach the "knee of the curve," which is the stage at which an exponential trend becomes noticeable." - TSIN, p.9. He does not define "knee" to mean an inflection point.
- Tim Tyler

... as the article says, "becomes noticeable" is a meaningless term, in proportion to the current value, the growth rate of an exponential is always the same; that's what an exponential curve is. I guess it's not an inflection point, but it's certainly suggesting a change in the first derivative.
- Alex Power

Wouldn't it technically be semi-log paper? (Or I guess you can call it log paper since it comes from logs...) But yeah, "knee" is a meaningless term, particularly when plotting a semi-log graph.
- Jim Norris

When Kurzweil came to give an author talk at Google, I asked him whether his exponential graph couldn't be explained by the fact that the further an event is in the past, the less likely it is to remain in our collective memory. He was silent for a noticeable time, and then did not actually answer my question. At least my copy of _TSIN_ was free...
- Ruchira S. Datta

I prefer the way Vernor Vinge presents the singularity in his books (incidentally, way before Kuzweil popularized it). Give more and more people a decent education, put more and more information and computing power into their hands, and increase the density and speed of their interconnectivity, and you can't predict the disruptive result (even in Marooned in Realtime, it's unclear if humanity just killed itself or something else happens), Vinge doesn't explicitly say 'progress' happened.
- Ray Cromwell

"Becomes noticeable" does mean *something* - it refers to some time after the point when the first person notices it.
- Tim Tyler

Ray: Agreed about Vinge! In 'Marooned in Realtime' we have no idea what the actual outcome of the singularity was. Even those who lived very-near-but-not-through the disruption have no clue what actually happened and can only guess. I suppose that is the nature of observing a singularity from outside its event horizon though, right? He also deals with that sort of phenomenon in 'A Fire...
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- veo

For what it's worth, Cameron's scriptment covered that plot hole. Corporations in space are banned from using weapons of mass destruction. Also, Pandora threatened humans with a civilization ending virus if they ever returned to Pandora.
- Kevin Fischer

Another explanation could be simple logistics. It takes 5 years to get there, they obviously didn't bring a whole lot of orbital weaponry because they didn't expect the natives to put up such a fight. They had to use the shuttle to even deliver conventional bombs. Perhaps they could have come back in a later iteration with orbital weapons, but on such a long expensive journey, you...
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- Ray Cromwell

Maybe I should try exporting from Facebook to FriendFeed - instead of exporting from FriendFeed to Facebook.
- Tim Tyler

That would be sad. I still find FriendFeed vastly preferable for following the activities of people I find interesting, primarily because I don't have to go to a website to check for stuff. I have it set to email me postings by certain people. Facebook, on the other hand, is cluttered up with random comments from people who I care about, but with whom I don't necessarily have a current intellectual connection. I go there when I am lonely.
- Robin Barooah

I did try the "Facebook to FriendFeed" direction once before - but there were problems. I'll review things.
- Tim Tyler

That doesn't look like downtime to me. It looks like an error caused by them not handling a niche browser and an odd search term properly.
- Robin Barooah

It wasn't confined to that search - and was repeatable for a while (though intermittent). Downtime - from my POV.
- Tim Tyler

Did you repeat it from a more commonly used browser? Also, at any given moment, Google always has some failed nodes and a tiny fraction of searches will result in errors as a result. 'Downtime' usually means that a service is down - not that there are errors being generated. My guess is that you got lucky and happened to observe a failed node for a bit, but I doubt that many searches were affected.
- Robin Barooah
from email

Sure. I'm being affected by 1g of gravity right now but my acceleration is zero. Ironically, if I jumped off a building my accelerometer would have no idea what my acceleration is. gravity is the only kind of acceleration that accelerometers are really bad at measuring because the force affects every part of the machine equally.
- Kevin Fox

Kevin, it is described properly, it senses orientation through velocity change.
- NOT THE CRICKET

Jimminy, I disagree. If you rotate an accelerometer precisely around the accelerometer it can still sense the orientation change, but the only velocity change it experiences is radial velocity, which a single accelerometer can't measure. But I see your point.
- Kevin Fox

OK, Kevin, let me put it this way: How would you sense orientation without an accelerometer?
- Gabe

Kevin, I was just reading up on the subject, and can see where I'm wrong, but if it is multiple-axis accelerometer, that isn't an issue the individual accelerometer would have. Still trying to figure it all out, it's a pretty interesting concept as to how it works.
- NOT THE CRICKET

Do you have a better name for that type of sensor? Forceometer? (I just wish MEMS gyros were cheaper. Then we could actually make noncrappy orientation sensors, and AR apps might actually work.)
- ⓞnor
from Android

I was about to say what 'Jeev said: Mercury switches, just like they used to.
- Kevin Fox

Or they could just have a set of sliders on the side of the phone and instructions on setting them according to the orientation of the phone ;) (the "user education" approach to usability)
- Paul Buchheit

This is why Wikipedia sucks. This sentence is far to assertive: " On the surface of the Earth, all objects are said to fall with an acceleration of somewhere between 9.78 and 9.82 m/s2." In reality, almost no objects are falling (or 'said to fall') at any given time.
- Kevin Fox

Or mount the screen on a hinge and weight the bottom so that turning the frame lets the screen re-orient. ;-)
- Kevin Fox

Acceleration and gravity are nearly impossible to distinguish. Mercury switches certainly don't do it any better than anything else!
- ⓞnor
from Android

Theoretically acceleration not due to gravity should be associated with strain on the device, whereas gravity (acting on every particle) should not.
- Private Sanjeev

Kevin/Sanjeev: Are you telling me that a mercury switch would not detect sufficient acceleration in any direction?
- Gabe

You can use a mercury switch to sense orientation. I don't normally think of mercury switches as accelerometers.
- Private Sanjeev

Gabe, the term accelerometer (to me) implies that it can determine vector and magnitude. A mercury switch can determine only vector.
- Kevin Fox

A mercury switch is used to sense change of orientation in a single axis. It doesn't work very well if the switch is put on its side.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble

I would say that a mercury switch can only determine if it's active or not...it's on or off. It can't determine vector.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble

It can. you could either have three switches, or you can have a sphere with several metal contacts on the inside, with a bead of mercury inside. These exist.
- Kevin Fox

What's with all this mercury switch nonsense anyway? If somebody wants to add an orientation sensor to their device, they're not going to use a mercury switch or beryllium sphere, they're going to use a fancy new solid-state accelerometer.
- Gabe

Gabe, your original question was how to sense orientation without an accelerometer :)
- Private Sanjeev

Sure, but a mercury switch is just another form of accelerometer (i.e. just sensing acceleration), so it isn't an answer to the question. Possible answers include use of a Hall effect sensor to detect orientation with respect to the Earth's gravitational field or a phased array antenna to detect the direction of satellite signals.
- Gabe

Alright Gabe, you win :). I also take back what I said about distinguishing gravity from acceleration through other forces. That only applies to forces applied to objects in free fall.
- Private Sanjeev

One advantage the Mac has vs Windows is that Apple controls the whole box, so it doesn't come preloaded with Norton AV and other garbage, poorly written drivers, etc. Maybe Microsoft should do like Google (Nexus One) and compete with their OEMs. They could probably make a much nicer machine than Dell does.

The hardware is basically the same, but the overall platform experience is very different.
- Paul Buchheit

I'm sure the OEMs would complain, but I don't think there are any actual anti-trust issues.
- Paul Buchheit

I never buy PCs in this way anyway, purely for this reason. I've never put Norton on anyone's machine, even my worst enemy. Preloaded PCs are awful.
- Kol Tregaskes

I think it might end up like PlaysForSure, with OEMs deciding to bail when Microsoft starts to compete with them. Windows is probably big enough for OEMs to grin and bear it, but all it takes is one big mistake to initiate a chain reaction.
- Mark Trapp

I also think you could make the argument now that Microsoft already did this with XBox.
- Mark Trapp

What choice do they have Mark, ship Linux instead?! They're stuck with Windows.
- Paul Buchheit

Right now, sure: but hell hath no fury like a corporation scorn'd. They could all rally around the "kill Microsoft" flag and pull a VHS to Microsoft's Betamax.
- Mark Trapp

They are already building awesome keyboard, mouse, webcams. A proper PC which leverages Windows 7 multi-touch to max will be great.
- aakash

I think Microsoft (kind of) doing this in their physical stores - a lot of the machines come with a "clean" install of Windows. (I am not sure if it is all of the machines.)
- Jennifer Dittrich

Microsoft recently introduced the "Microsoft Signature" brand of PCs which are still manufactured by third parties but don't come pre-loaded with any third-party crapware. More info at http://www.geek.com/article....
- Isaac Hepworth

Interesting, Isaac: who actually makes the Microsoft Signature PCs? Or is it more of an endorsement/certification any manufacturer can get?
- Mark Trapp

Mark: the article indicated that Signature PCs come from manufacturers like Sony and HP.
- Gabe

Hey Paul: 1) You do know that some OEMs (HP, Dell, Alienware, for example) allow you to order PCs without any 3rd party apps installed, right? Maybe you should inform yourself before posting stuff. 2) Any 3rd party apps you see on a new Windows PC are the fault of the OEM, *not* MS 3) Economically speaking PCs would be more expensive if it weren't for crapware. Norton et al subsidize the cost of PCs by paying for a spot on new installations. Not everyone can afford a 4 figure laptop.
- LANjackal

LANjackal: calm down. Paul's making a good point -- your average Windows machine is annoying to use because somebody who doesn't care about your experience configured it. Your average Apple is not so annoying because Apple won't let anybody else configure it, and they do care about your experience.
- Gabe

I was pointing out specific cases where the argument breaks down, but if you use the term "average" you're correct
- LANjackal

I like it as long as it doesn't hinder innovation of hardware components by them sticking with certain brands or technology. The ability to build a computer from scratch yourself for cheap is part of the appeal. Microsoft should have a better relationship with OEM's to provide solid drivers.
- Rodfather

Rodfather, OEMs (and anyone else) would still continue producing Windows machines. The only change would be that they'd have to compete with MS, who presumably cares more about the overall windows brand than they do.
- Paul Buchheit

Yes, but if Microsoft creates a machine that is "Microsoft certified", it may cause OEM's to stick to that spec. Like with netbooks. Innovation there is hindered since Microsoft set certain specs a netbook should have to allow Windows 7 Starter edition installed for very cheap.
- Rodfather

That's actually a good idea, but so far MS has only used its own branding in markets in which it needed a huge dent against a formidable incumbent (console gaming, MP3 players). You'd be hard pressed to say that MS needs to make a huge dent in the PC market right now as they're already the formidable incumbent
- LANjackal
from IM

Advantage? Control? these words doesn't come together in the software world. I don't have Norton AV preloaded and have support for more devices than OSX.
- Sebastian Wain

What Jeremy? Neither Scoble has touched this conversation, yet.
- NOT THE CRICKET

Didn't MS give out Acer laptops they had speced and configured (?) at their PDC conference last year?
- Nick Lothian

I think it's an interesting concept. And while a Microsoft "certified" PC might hinder innovation in some way (not sure about that, but I'll roll with it) I don't think a Microsoft produced PC would hinder anything. It's just competition, and that's healthy for an ecosystem.
- Jason Wehmhoener

Alex - good one, now they just need to go a step further like Paul mentioned. I think it's a good idea! I just bought a new laptop last week with Windows7 and de-installed a tonne of crapware... augh
- Susan Beebe

MS may _care_ about the user experience, but as a corporate culture it is much less likely to get the little details right. Crapware bloat, sure. Really little details, which aggregate to a better user experience? ... probably not. (ref the famous MS-internal "if MS designed the iPod box" video.)
- Andrew C (✔)

I've never bought a branded PC, I always put my own desktop PC hardware together myself. I can't see any reason to change except a competitive price.
- Simon Curran

Just buy from Dell and you won't have to deal with any of the pre-loaded Krap. I just bought a Dell Studio 15 Win 7 laptop from Dell for my wife and it did not come with ANY preloaded crap. Neither did the Dell laptop I bought for my daughter last spring or the Precision desktop I bought 1.5 years ago.
- Jeff P. Henderson

Id buy a MS PC in a second, but Dells are pretty nice as is. You just need to get the XPS line.
- sean percival

Not being a wintard, I can't address that, but unix is just as "homegrown" as anything else.
- Hayes Haugen

As we all know in 15 years HTML5 will be finalized and the host OS will be irrelevant.
- Hayes Haugen

Haven't you heard, in the future we'll be all running .NET on the hardware and writing our device drivers with C#?
- Tarmo Aidantausta

Cristo: ports I use on my current laptop that I want on my next one: RS-232, VGA, CardBus
- Gabe

Well, MS doesn't like crapware and sells PCs in it's stores without it. OEMs start to get the idea, and offer crap-free PCs to order through their websites. It might take time for them to make crap-free PCs a default production option.
- Kirill Petrovsky

Wow, in 15 years Unix will be 56 years old. Will we see a true paradigm shift in OS kernels before then? Or will we still be discussing bloatware? I'm thinking the latter.
- Hayes Haugen

@Hayes I'd like to be optimistic and say that we'll have something better but I doubt it.
- Tarmo Aidantausta

By then it'll be biological parts doing the work and have a whole new system that doesn't use binary.
- Rodfather

Cristo, I don't want to walk around with over $100 worth of dongles hanging off my computer. CardBus is the 32-bit version of PC Card (PCMCIA). It has been superseded by ExpressCard (which is only found on Apple's 17"), but I use both on my current laptop.
- Gabe

They stopped putting ExpressCard on 15" laptops around June. They replaced them with SD card slots. Apparently Apple thinks that most people used their EC slots for pulling photos off their digicams.
- Gabe